Below is an abbreviated version of a document signed by the leading personalities in Slovenia today. The roster itself illuminates the problem; all of them are on public payroll. Conspicuously absent are signatures of leaders of media, industry and commerce. Where is private enterprise? Its absence proves its non-existence and the point that democratic elections are simply not possible if one party owns all the assets.
We, the undersigned Slovenian intellectuals, artists and scientists - including members of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and of international scientific and academic associations - conclude with regret that Slovenia, seven years after the first democratic elections, is increasingly lagging behind European cultural and democratic standards. The distancing of Slovenia from the circle of countries which are ready for integration into Europe is primarily the result of the fact that the internal life of our state is becoming more and more channeled into the frameworks of the former communist regime.
The painful process of Slovenia's inclusion into NATO, and the uncertain prospects for full membership of the European Union, both offer a warning to which we cannot any longer close our eyes. Several of the foremost west European newspapers have been writing critically about the state of democracy in Slovenia. They have quite openly expressed their doubt about the readiness of the ruling Slovenian policy makers to establish a formally irreproachable democratic life. Instead of directly confronting these critiques, our government and the Slovenian media are covering them up, diminishing their authenticity, or even brutally attacking the critics in the manner of the self-satisfied post-communist enclaves. As convinced Slovenian Europeans, we consider that the only way for Slovenia to enter the European Union is by setting itself the highest European cultural, ethical, political, legal, and economic standards. This depends on nobody but ourselves. We ourselves opted for democracy and for an independent state; we ourselves must ensure that democracy is fully implemented in our country.
Borut Prah,
Oakland, California
Below is the abbreviated text of the original seven thousand word text signed by the key Slovenian personalities on July 9, 1997. The English translation of Slovenian language text has been edited for clarity by Borut Prah and dr. Vlado Bevc, August 30, 1997.
Contents
AUTHORS AND CO-SIGNERS OF THIS DOCUMENT:
Original translation from Slovenian language by Alan McConnell-Duff
THE HOUR OF EUROPEAN TRUTH FOR SLOVENIA
1. The state of democracy in Slovenia today
At the time when we were concerned with the establishment of an independent state, we adopted certain clearly established aims which could not possibly have been achieved within the former communist Yugoslavia. These aims included:
Today we realize with great concern that we have not attained or fulfilled any of these aims to the justly expected extent. By contrast, the extent of power and the manner of government - which in Slovenia we designate by the concept of continuity - is growing.
Evidence is abundant that these people have not changed their political philosophy; they have merely adjusted to the new circumstances to sustain their party in power. Some of the leading politicians who control Slovenian political life today were not just ordinary members of the League of Communists. They were persons who during the prior regime - in a more or less authoritarian manner - decided on everything. They had supervisory control over all spheres of public life, and to whom - under the rules then prevailing - the secret police were subordinated. The uncontested fact is that the current President of the republic is a former long-term president of the Central Committee of the League of Communists, and that the Prime Minister of the present Slovenian government was formerly a President of Socialist Yugoslavia. Since both men came to power through democratic elections, just as did certain other former leaders in several post-communist states of Eastern Europe, no objection can be made except that free elections are not possible when one party owns all the wealth in the country.
What is contentious, however, is that both President and Prime Minister continue to practice the political philosophy of the previous regime: authoritarian manner of governing assisted by the media. There is little dialogue in the legislature and the Constitution is freely violated.
Here are some recent specific examples: The President of the Republic called upon members of parliament to ratify an international agreement which runs contradictory to the Constitution.
The government directly assumed control over the secret service. When the opposition demanded that it should be given at least a supervisory place in
parliament to review this sensitive issue, this possibility was withheld, and the supervisory role was entrusted to the party of the Prime Minister. The government allocates all funds. In general, the opposition and critical voices are dealt in the old manner and attacked as a class enemy by both the government and the media.
Slovenian Constitution formally divides the authority into legislative, judicial and executive. This, however, has not brought any great changes in administration which has remained in the hands of people who ran the previous regime and who continue to exert power following the old model of unitarian authority. What was especially characteristic of this model was that the most important state decisions were taken within the closed, informal circles within the parliament who in fact wielded executive power.
Six years after the Constitution was approved by the Parliament, instead
legalizing decisions and translating them into laws the number of
extra-parliamentary meetings by far exceeds the number of regular
parliamentary sessions. The hasty resolutions do not allow the parliament
to critically assess the proposed laws and anti-constitutionality of laws
is becoming an almost normal occurrence and urgent and necessary
interventions by the Constitutional Court are frequent. If the characteristic concept of a legal state assumes that the highest state bodies are also strictly bound to respect the legal norms, which they themselves have issued, then such handling of authority is a fundamental
denigration of the legal nature of our state. In addition, these same
people who consciously breach the Constitution, carry out political and
media campaigns against the judges of the Constitutional Court, the very
body which remains the one vital source of trust for the nation. Many judges of lower courts, when they encounter an unusual or exceptional case linked to social or political circumstances, consign the matter to the drawer rather than to expose their judgement to public criticism. By contrast, the government has pronounced no criticism concerning the ethical responsibility and professional inadmissibility of judgements made during the former regime which inflicted severe political sentences, thereby infringing human rights to which even the former Yugoslavia subscribed. The bundling of organizations of the prosecution, the
operations of the police and the judiciary, has deprived the enforcers of
law of all credibility and of the ability to undertake the tasks of unbiased judgement. In fact, the process is almost identical to that in the former regime. Both were inspired by the values derived from the model of the League of Communists. As a consequence, confidence in the judicial system amongst the Slovenian public is at the lowest possible point. Since legal order does not exist, the situation is now extending to that of systematic infraction of human rights.
Property rights, in the State of Slovenia, are honored selectively. The Denationalization Law of property, expropriated under revolutionary decrees, passed by the first democratic parliament in 1991, resulted in 200,000 valid claims affecting about one third of population. Six years later, most claims are still open.
Rather than implementing the law , there are constant attempts to have it altered to the detriment of those whose property has been expropriated. The government is well aware that, overnight, denationalization would recreate the middle class from a large segment of proletariat and this middle class could finance opposing political parties. Instead of a genuine effort to create a market economy and intelligent economic and social reforms we have a poorly supervised privatization. With the aid of the judiciary and the media, the administration has swept under the carpet a variety of fraudulent grabs of properties including major industrial complexes valued several hundred million dollars, such as HIT (Hotel and Tourism syndicate), TAM (Maribor Automobile Factory), Litostroj, Primex, Elan.
The attempt to divide up socially owned property by issuing "certificates" has been only partially successful. Many people have been let down and are left with worthless papers in their hands. Those who have become the new owners of companies are, in the main, former party functionaries and members of their management, while the new business opportunities have been snatched up by all sorts of speculators. All these people behave like war profiteers, with a marked inclination towards consumption rather than investment.
The workers are unprotected since there is no normal state of relations between employers and employees. Consequently, the trade unions address their demands directly to the state, which results in the continuation of the former self-management practice of pressures in the direction of inflation. On the occasion of strikes, the media customarily take up a position against the workers, at times even brand them as enemies of the state, as long as the strike is not organized by the former regime trade unions. Strikes in democracy are not needed - so it has been written. This, too, is a proof of the unchanged political philosophy which in the past consistently instructed us that, under socialism, workers could strike only against themselves.
Given the significance of media in any democracy, one cannot pass over this crucial domain. Predictably, our press prefer to be critical of public rather than of the people and parties in government. This also holds true for economy, finance, education, and agriculture. (We must not forget who still runs these sectors). With regard to its media, Slovenia is a unique example in the European democratic domain.
For example, the Ljubljana newspaper Dnevnik daily publishes contributions from seemingly "independent" writers who are functionaries of the party in power - though, this is not mentioned. The national radio, in its "humorous" programs, indulges - without any basic respect - in infantile mockery of the victims of communist aggression, (even on the occasion of the memorial mass for the mass execution of thousands at Rog, months after the war ended). In the campaign leading up to the last elections, some daily newspapers placed themselves directly in the service of the governing party and promoted its interests. This one fact should give us cause for reflection: more than half of the citizens of Slovenia who went to the polls did not have a voice in the Slovenian press to articulate their desires and interests or express their dissatisfaction with the existing conditions. The difficulties with the media in Slovenia do not lie only in what they write, but rather in what they fail to write about: in what they falsify, pass over in silence, or consign completely to the margins. Editors reject even contributions from eminent individuals and from groups of highly-reputed intellectuals, thus even further restricting the already restricted space for the public exchange of opinion. The relevant dialogue has been shifted by the editors to the "Readers Letters" page. As a result, true criticism is discredited, and fruitful dialogue rendered impossible.
In recent years, attempts to introduce true pluralism into the media have
generally failed and space for the press is shrinking. Those who might be
able to create a free flow of ideas and straightforward commentary have
remained true to their old political philosophy. The newspaper publishing
houses have taken over from the era of socialism the entire infrastructure,
the subscription network and the appropriate professional know-how.
Instead of placing all this at the disposal of the broader spectrum of democratic life, they have placed it in the service of one political option: after so many years, and so many articles read, one might say - in the service of those opinions which in political life are generally
designated as post-communist continuity. The Slovenian media are the wretched reflection of the disposition of
political power. Although this image may be corrected by some rare
individuals amongst the editors and journalists, they cannot, unfortunately, change the overall situation.
From its very beginnings, Slovenian culture evolved by combining imported European culture with its own original spiritual powers. It is precisely because of this fact that we Slovenians entered the twentieth century as an already formed European nation. Despite difficult historical conditions, Slovenia preserved her national identity. The original Slovenian art and thinking survived through these difficulties to produce achievements comparable to the highest European level.
The process of European unification under way is based precisely on
respect for cultural identities. Therefore, Slovenian culture will have
no difficulties in the European integration process. Under socialism, from dissident thinking ultimately emerged the Slovenian national program, having one of the guiding motives the creation of an independent state and the preservation of Slovenian culture. Following the achievement of independence, it was natural to expect that culture and the entire spiritual and intellectual domain would enjoy a resurgence, now unburdened of the state-creating function. However, the governing political authorities have discovered a conveniently convoluted possibility for the renewed use of culture to attain short-term and even daily-political aims. This has been done by moving into the place where, formerly, the whole and complete Slovenian culture pulsated and
expanded its energy, and by introducing segments of populist culture - or,
more appropriately, provincial products which already by their very nature
are devised for subservience. In education we see subjects from the domain of the arts and humanities being persistently and systematically dropped
from the syllabus. An honest and objective survey of recent Slovenian
history has still not found its place on the school syllabus. A report written by a group of foreign observers for the Council of Europe concerning conditions in the sphere of culture in Slovenia is critical of the fact that, since socialist times, nothing has essentially changed here in the conduct and organization of culture. This report was not translated and made available to the public. Political praxis also does not cater fully for Slovenian science, but instead adjusts it to transitional requirements, of course to the extent that science itself permits. We are all aware that the sciences are insufficiently funded and organizationally splintered, and that they are operating more according to bureaucratically determined models of financing than according to their own internal logistics. Keeping pace with Europe will not be possible if, in the field of science as well, Slovenia does not accord itself to European standards. In addition, we are also threatened by the brain-drain of first-class minds to places where better conditions are offered for creative work.
In absence of any qualified criticism - except some of the less publicly known interventions by the parliamentary opposition - it is no means by chance that Slovenia's planned association with the European Union has been led and conducted by mainly incompetent people. The government and parliament did not know how to use the firm and consistent negotiations to attain Slovenia's interests. Instead, Slovenian diplomacy resorted to the Balkan strategy of double-play, charlatan improvisation and deceptive assurances. In the media, distasteful campaigns were sparked off against those who criticized these tactics. The President of the Republic, together with his associates, has led us into a position in which we are obliged to fulfil conditions which are not required of any other associate member of the European community. These conditions are contained in what is known as the "Spanish compromise", which was for a long time hidden by the government from the public. This compromise relegated Slovenia into an exceptionally subordinate position. The government - through its incompetence, vacillation, concealment, and manipulation of the media - has led us into a situation in which we must face the fact that, for Slovenia, none of the solutions will be good. Clearly, the government would do anything to enter the European community; this would confirm and seal its legitimacy in the international world, and - especially at home - keep it in power.
We, the undersigned, believe that
we should enter the European Union in accordance with European democratic
standards which, however, must be demonstrated by attaining equal standards in our domestic political life. This, clearly, will not be possible as long
as the situation which currently prevails in our politics, state administration, judiciary, economy, media and culture, is sustained by continuity of the former totalitarian regime.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, more than 10,000 people were executed without trial in Slovenia. The parliamentary commission of inquiry estimates that up to 28,000 were persons were subjected to politically directed judicial sanctions and trials. In addition, several thousand citizens were sentenced to forced labor by administrative decree. The "Peoples Committees" had the power to sentence a person to restriction of liberty of up to three years. Altogether, 200,000 citizens had their property confiscated. All families living in the border regions whom the Communist Party considered politically unreliable were removed from their homes without court orders. By the same procedure, children could be barred from secondary education and prevented from studying at the institutions of higher learning. Numerous professionals in the industry and the academe were dismissed because they exercised their freedom of speech. After the war, more than a hundred priests were imprisoned following staged trials. Many writers and journalists were imprisoned because of their writings.
The post-war political repression frequently entailed criminal abuse of the victims. Perpetrators of those criminal activities have never been publicly identified and none of the injustices committed have been rectified. On the contrary, some of the post-war crimes committed by the government against its own population are publicly condoned and represented as necessary patriotic acts. The sentences meted out in the political show trials, from the most notorious to the most obscure have never been reversed or annulled. The way the rehabilitation processes are handled defies all sense of reason. People who were unjustly punished by the former regime must, if they wish to have their sentences set aside and expunged from their records, bear the burden of proving their own innocence. We know of instances in which victims of the former political persecution were required to prove in the courts of today's democratic Slovenia that they did not attempt to undermine the socialist system or spoke disrespectfully of President Tito or other prominent communist leaders. Following the notorious trial of the priests held at Tolmin in the Slovenian Littoral (Primorska), in the fifties, the accused had to spend many years in prison. In 1996 the prosecutor withdrew all charges against them but the victims have not been accorded a rehabilitation to this day.
Instead of condemning of the crimes committed following the Second World War and other repressive acts of the
totalitarian regime, the present-day Slovenia continues a deliberate falsification of history thus reinforcing the ideological and political continuity of the former regime. Instead of respecting and cherishing the memory of the fallen partisans and hostages shot by the occupying forces in reprisal of the partisan activities, homage is still being paid to persons who are undoubtedly responsible for the post-
war oppression and, possibly, crimes. In Ljubljana, Velenje and other cities monuments to the tyrants are still standing; in Murska Sobota such monuments are even adorned by the
artillery pieces of the Soviet Army.
For more than seven years the Slovenian government has done nothing to set the matters right in this domain. These are poor credentials for entering the European community. The prospects for democracy in our republic are equally poor. Democracy cannot thrive on lies and deception. Disenchantment and distrust of democracy is displacing the hopes of citizens who wanted a meaningful change in the conduct of our national affairs. The relative liberality of the terminal years of the Yugoslav "self-management," associated with expectation that a transition to democracy would occur concurrently with the precarious quest for independence were two factors that made it possible for the former regime to survive both in its methods of operation and continuity of the personnel. Those central European countries that take democracy seriously have through declarative actions and restructuring legislation, broken the continuity with their former totalitarian regimes. Because this has not taken place in Slovenia we have regressed to a situation where a complete lack of standards has brought about a paralysis of our political life.
In the sequel of recent events concerning NATO and the European Union, the critical writing of the European democratic press, and the increasingly more apparent internal and economic crises, Slovenia must confront its hour of truth. This also is the time for freeing our nation's political life from the paralysis. The prerequisite for this is a clear repudiation of the former regime and conduct of our affairs in accordance with the principles of the European democratic way of life.
We firmly believe that, our country, must resolutely and unequivocally cut the umbilical cord which binds us to the
totalitarian system. This has to be done by a declaration of the parliament and appropriate legislation.
11. What is to be done
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What is to be done